Do you like your clients?

Recently, I was meeting with a potential client and learning what her business needs were as well as telling her what I could offer to her. At the end of the conversation, she said something which really stood out to me, "I like you. I think I'll do business with you, because I prefer to do business with people I like." It was a nice compliment and I'll confess the first time I'd ever heard a client tell me that s/he liked me. She must've realized that because she followed up with, "I don't do business with people I don't like. If I don't like them, I can't give them my best effort." After I left her office and was driving home, I got to thinking about whether or not I liked my clients and how important that actually is to doing business with them. I concluded that in fact I did like my clients, but also realized that every time I'd turned down potential business from someone. Some of that selectiveness boiled down to how my personality didn't mesh with the personality of the person I was doing some potential business with. It may seem odd to include whether you like your client as part of your criteria for doing business with someone, but I actually think it makes perfect sense. If someone rubs you wrong, do you really want to spend time around that person? If you're like me, your answer is going to be no. In situations where I've worked around people I didn't like, I always felt uncomfortable and distracted and consequently didn't give my best effort to what I was doing. Now that I'm a business owner, I can be more selective about who I work with and in fact I am more selective as not every person is my ideal client. I'd rather have clients I like, because I know I'll give those clients my best effort. After all, if I like them, I want to show them that I care about them and putting forth my best effort shows that I care.   Truth to tell, what I realized about liking my clients was that I also believed in my clients and their success. When you like someone, you want that person to succeed. Conversely when you don't like someone, you aren't as invested in that person's success and may even try to sabotage it. Now you may not be consciously aware you are sabotaging that person, but that doesn't mean some part of you won't be working against that person if you dislike him/her. And that just creates bad business for everyone. Still, I wouldn't say that you should reject business solely on the basis of disliking someone. If you decide you're not going to do business with someone, make sure you have some practical reasons to back up your feeling of dislike and never tell the person you aren't doing business with him/her because you don't like him/her. In fact, sometimes you may not do business with people you like, for similar reasons. My point is never tell someone your personal feelings for not doing business with him/her. The last thing you need is for people to start saying you're a snob, because you tell someone you won't do business with that you don't like him/her. At the same time honor your feelings. My intuition has helped me out time and again when it comes to people. And if I feel that the person I could do business with doesn't like me, I know I'll have to put more effort into winning him/her over, which may not be worth that much effort. I'd rather put that kind of effort into the people I like, because I know it will be returned by them as well. Knowing how you feel about someone can tell you a lot about the success of any business you do with that person. If there is a sense of dislike, will you really give your best effort? I like my clients. I like them because they choose to do business with me, but more importantly, I like them because they are enjoyable people to know. In getting the opportunity to do business with them, I've been fortunate enough to cultivate some wonderful friendships. I feel blessed to have them as clients and give them my best efforts, because they are people I like and admire. And I think that contributes to keeping them as clients. You take care of the people you like, because you want to show them you care. Do you like your clients? 2009-08-16T02:00:55Z